S t y x and Stones
by Heart Of Flames
Summary: [AU, FateNanoha] When Fate dies, she finds herself accepting becoming a collector of souls in exchange for her sanity. And when she meets Takamachi Nanoha, the girl whose soul she has been assigned to collect, she cannot seem to do so.


_**A/N: **This is the first thing I write that has nothing to do with my crazy imagination. Erm...try not to flame it too badly. My sister gave me the idea since I was dying to write something about FateNanoha, but I wrote everything...S'my first fic..._

**S t y x**

and

Stones

_Prologue__: The End (Beginning)_

She was dead, and what came afterwards was unexpected.

She had expected something majestic. Something maybe a bit extraordinary. She had expected someone to tell her what she had done right and wrong in her life. She had expected some explanations. She had expected to find the answers to the mysteries that had haunted her since childhood. Deep down she may have even expected to reunite with her dead sister. But this…this was completely unexpected. Nothing she could have heard in the churches could ever have prepared her for something like this.

She was in a circular room, a room of darkness. There was no light. Simply shadows that moved and seemed to whisper to each other throughout the time that passed. And _what_ time passed? She had no notion of any time passing. Just a sense of boredom and a yearning for freedom that absolutely disturbed her.

Multiple times, she tried to speak, and found that she couldn't. She could only observe the shadows and hearken to understand their whispers. They slurred together, making them impossible to understand. And then finally, a figure appeared in the center of the room. A hooded figure with impossibly bright green eyes.

"You are dead." He said.

Again, she tried to speak.

"I know." She managed to answer.

"Your name is Fate Testarossa." He stated; his face was blank and emotionless.

"Yes."

"You were born as the clock struck midnight on the 12 of December in the year 1731."

"I was."

She felt confusion at these statements, but did not ask questions.

"You were abused from a small age. Your sister acted as your guardian until she died two years ago. Her name was Alicia Testarossa."

"Indeed."

"You are now the age of 17."

"I am…"

"You died as the clock struck five in the morning of December 12 in the year 1748. You drowned."

"…Yes. I was murdered."

The figure remained quiet, surveying her with an impossibly expressionless face. She stared back, her face equally unresponsive. She had nothing left to feel. Her emotions had suddenly been numbed.

"You are easier than the rest." He stated simply, and let the words die.

"Am I?"

"They are usually in denial. They cannot believe they have died. Especially those that have been murdered. And if not, they believe they deserve a second chance at living."

She remained quiet.

"You are also quiet."

"I am." A simple answer. Nothing more.

The figure's face twitched at her deadpan answer. He stepped back, and suddenly, his face disappeared behind the hood. His voice was dead and raspy when he spoke.

"The time will come when we will meet again."

It was not a promise, but a statement. A statement she knew would come to pass. She nodded her head but did not speak. The figure sunk into the ground and she was left alone to wait. And to resist the insanity that the shadows would try to impose upon her with their whispers of evil things into her ear.

* * *

She did not know how long she waited within that chamber. There was no food or water within those walls. She did not have any need for them. No one would come to see her. She could not escape the room or the hisses in her ears that were beginning to affect her. She had ignored them for the most part, or had sought to. But she would find it increasingly difficult to continue her behavior. The shadows on the wall made shapes. Shapes that were dark, that reminded her of her life from beginning to end. 

She began to obsess over the last few years of her life. Over the worst memories that made her skin crawl and become cold, the ones that made her heart race as she remembered them. The ones most difficult to bear were those of her sister's death and of her own, at the hands of the man to whom she had been promised. She lay on her back, motionless, and at times it felt as though she were going somewhere, as if she were drifting towards something more important than the place she was in at the time.

It became difficult to breathe at times. It was a habit and she could not shake it off. She did not want to stop it. Doing so would mean destroying one of the last few things she had left of her humanity. And so she did not stop breathing, even though her heart had frozen long ago. She knew not how much time had passed since the figure's statement. She did not want to know, and at the same time, she longed to know with everything she had. The floor was cold against her back, and hard despite its misty look. It did not feel good against her back.

At times, she tried to sleep. It proved impossible, as she had lost that capability when she had died. She would close her eyes for some time, its length impossible to define, and her life would pass before her eyes like a twisted movie. It would warp sometimes, and there were others when she could not remember some things at all. She would simply come across a blank, and though her chest ached and she tried her hardest, she could not remember. And the bad memories continued to play like a broken record.

Whenever she attempted to speak, she could not hear anything. As if her vocal cords had been disabled along with her heart. Her emotions became more acute. Whenever she managed to feel something, she felt it with an intensity she never thought would be possible. Sometimes she became furious; others she became depressed. It all depended on the memory she remembered. On the memory she analyzed. It became something predictably unpredictable.

And then one moment, the figure appeared again. He had not changed at all. He wore the same cloak that had been imprinted in her memory. He still had those impossibly bright green eyes. He was still expressionless.

"It has been a while, Fate Testarossa."

"Has it really?" She asked, and even though her voice did not show it, she wanted to know how long it had been.

"It has been more than 250 years since your death, Testarossa."

"It did not seem that long."

And it hadn't. But she could only wonder how many of those years she had spent replaying her life.

"You have not lost your mind to the shadows."

"I have lost only what I had left in the first place. I have lost nothing to the shadows."

The figure was silent once more. He spoke quietly the next time.

"You have been chosen, Testarossa. You have been summoned."

"Indeed?"

"Indeed."

She rose from the ground, her blonde hair as beautiful and silky as it had always been.

"Where?" She asked; her voice was soft.

"I shall show you there."

And his hand was offered. It was pale, thin, and human. Flesh and blood. Nothing like the things she had imagined. She took the hand that was offered. And her world began to spin. The shadows blurred together in a final, desperate screech, and then they were gone, as was everything else she could see. She could feel his hand in hers, but she could not see it, nor could she see anything else that was remotely close to her.

The darkness was blinding, and the soundlessness deafening. She was devoid of all her senses, and for a brief moment, she wondered whether she would go insane. She had heard of torture methods from far off lands, methods that utilized the numbing of the senses to drive the person in question to insanity. But then her feet touched the solid ground again, and her eyes unclouded to see two colossal gates. And in between those gates were a council. She could see and smell the fog that surrounded them, and there was a small strand of light that filtered through what looked like gray clouds.

Her breath was visible before her eyes.

The figure led her towards the small council and stopped a few feet short of them. He motioned toward them, and again, hid behind his hood. She stepped forward.

"Fate Testarossa…" A raspy voice hissed from behind one of the veils, "…you have managed to avoid insanity for the past two centuries…That is something not easily achieved for those like you…"

She remained quiet, simply watching. The voice continued.

"…Do you believe that some deserve a second chance at living?"

Again, its words were answered with silence.

"…We do not do so here. Instead, we bargain…"

"Bargain what?"

"Services."

"Services?"

"…You will become a …collector… of human souls."

"In exchange for what?"

"…For the freedom to go back into the human world. To go back and do whatever you please, so long as you hunt for souls in the process."

"…How will I know who will die?"

"You will be able to see…you will notice. The how is different for every person."

"…And if I refuse?"

"…You will go back to your petty existence in those cells."

And to go back there would be to welcome insanity.

"…Do I get a scythe?"

"I have a feeling…that Bardiche will serve you well…"

There was a shuffling of feet, and the hooded figure from where the voice came from stepped forward with a bony hand. The hand of a skeleton. And within that hand was a golden triangle, shaped like the pyramids of ancient Egypt.

"…Take it only if you wish to serve us…"

And so she did.

The change was not felt. She remained the same. But her clothes changed. The triangle on the palm of her hand changed. It elongated until it became a bright yellow scythe, glowing with otherworldly power. It shone through the darkness, illuminating the face behind the hood before her. It took all of her self control not to gasp.

"…Now, Fate Testarossa…I give you your first real task…A 17 year old girl will die 10 days after you arrive back on Earth. You are to stop the person destined to prevent her death and retrieve her soul…It will be your test to see whether or not you are capable of becoming a collector of souls…"

She nodded. And then she was pointed to the gate to her right.

"Through there you will find the portal to Earth…Find the girl…and take her soul…"

As she was approaching the gate with the figure with the bright green eyes, she stopped, and turned around.

"Wait…You never told me the subject's name…"

The hooded figure smiled a hollow smile.

"Her name is Takamachi Nanoha."

_**A/N: **Hah, there it is...I really hope you liked it. And Eli, don't you dare call me squirt if you review!_


End file.
